This spring, the Richmond Triangle Players takes Richmond back to the 80s, into the epicenter of America’s deadliest plague, with a heart-wrenching and politically provocative look at the AIDS epidemic. The story is told largely through the eyes of playwright Larry Kramer’s Ned Weeks, a gay activist struggling to navigate bureaucratic apathy, medical incompetence, and public indifference. The Normal Heart is a pivotal work in LGBTQ history, detailing the disease that has taken the lives of more than 675,000 people in the US.

George Boyd was associate director on the original Broadway production of As Is, the other well-known play about the AIDS crisis that premiered in 1985. 30 years later, Boyd is now directing RTP’s production of The Normal Heart.

“One of the reasons they wanted me to direct it at RTP is because I brought [the experience of] living through the worst phase of the AIDS crisis,” said Boyd. “It did feel like coming full circle.”

RTP executive director Philip Crosby said that Boyd was the perfect person to take the cast and audience through the story. “Most of the actors were going to be young enough that they wouldn’t have lived through this period. I wanted to make sure there was a director who did,” said Crosby.

RTP itself was founded based on telling stories of the AIDS epidemic, making The Normal Heart the perfect play to celebrate RTP’s 25th anniversary season.

“[Back then] nobody in town would do any LGBT work. A lot of that was the backlash towards AIDS,” said Crosby. “There was a lot of stuff written in the late 70s, early 80s that was LGBT focused, that was getting a lot of attention. Then, when the AIDS crisis hit, we all got shoved back in the closet.”

Like so many gay men in the 80s and 90s, main character Ned Weeks watches his friends die one-by-one. As the play goes on, and the death count rises, Ned’s feverish desire to affect change incrementally grows.

“The thing to remember back in the 80s is no one knew where it was coming from,” said Crosby. “It was the activity of liberation… in the LGBT community, which was also a part of the sexual revolution, that enabled the disease to creep in in the beginning.”

Dr. Emma Brookner, played by an impassioned and commanding Dawn Westbrook, tells Ned at the beginning of the play to “tell gay men to stop having sex.” The line drew a big laugh from the audience, and a incredulous response from Ned.

Sex was liberation for gay men in the 60s and 70s. It was the reclamation of their identity and freedom, and AIDS threatened to shatter one of the few means of connection that gay men had in the 80s, making a mockery of their newfound revolution.

“If having sex can kill you, doesn’t anyone with half a brain stop fucking?” asked Emma in the same scene. The answer, largely, was no. In part, this was because the origin of AIDS was unknown, more theory than substance. Meanwhile, the public turned a blind eye, denying funding and publicity to a disease that was tearing through the gay population like a biblical plague.

“It captures the anger that so many of us felt at that time,” said Crosby. “That not enough was being done, and quite frankly it wasn’t being done because the population that it was hitting was gay men.”

RTP’s production is captivating. Jim Morgan, playing lead Ned Weeks, is flawless. He has charisma and presence, and delivers monologues and diatribes that waver between articulate speeches and messy, verbose explosions of emotion.

The set, designed by Frank Foster, is a clean, stark stage of subway tile and columns. The tile informs the New York City setting, while three versatile screens set into the walls allow the stationary set to be ever-changing.

It’s amazing what you can do with four red vinyl chairs and a hospital gurney, which make up a majority of the props. The set shifts from hospital room to upscale law office to gaudy New York apartment on a dime. In one scene, folders and papers are scattered across the stage in frantic handfuls, and remain on the ground for the rest of the play, a move that escalates the feeling of agitated grief and panic as the production sobs to a close.

80s anthems announce every transition — “YMCA” playing as I walked into the theatre was a nice touch. At the close of act one, after an agonizing reveal, we launched into the intermission with “Eye of the Tiger,” a strong signal of the detachment between this story of the 80s vs. the candy-coated retelling of the decade we are fed in nostalgic, heterosexual media.

Though the play features a good balance of humor to temper the heavy-weighted tragedy — a move that Boyd said was crucial — the end tipped almost the entire audience, including me, into tears. The standing ovation was partnered with a lot of sniffles.

Ned’s narrative — based on Larry Kramer’s experience founding Gay Men’s Health Crisis to combat the AIDS epidemic — is one of community outrage vs. public and private inaction. And though it’s a story that is decades old, it is deeply rooted in present day.

“Even though we were talking about Reagan at the time, it’s very clear that we have incredible parallels in our own lives right now with Mr. Trump. It’s about everything from diversity to transgender [individuals] in the service. Everything that he promised doesn’t seem to be on his agenda right now,” said Boyd. He references one of Emma’s lines about everyone deserving good medical care, a battle still going strong in the US today.

Though the terror of the 80s and 90s AIDS confusion is over, with methods of prevention and treatment now known, it is still a prevalent disease in the US, with more than 1.1 million people living with HIV today. In a previous interview, Nationz Foundation founder Zakia McKensey told GayRVA that “[HIV] rates are rapidly increasing in [Richmond]. Nationz has identified six new positives just this first three months of the year.”

“To be in your twenties or your thirties and spending all your time going to wakes and memorials because your friends are dropping all around you, it was surreal,” said Crosby. “‘I don’t know how to describe it except to say I would hope you would never go through that thing again.”

Education about STDs and safe sex is more important than ever, and RTP’s production of The Normal Heart is partnered with the Health Brigade, a Richmond medical clinic providing quality health services. “We have the long history of being in the forefront of AIDS/HIV care and testing, which led to a keen awareness of the need for excellent LGBT care,” Health Brigade’s Medical Director, Wendy Klein told GayRVA in a previous interview.

The Normal Heart is a powerful testament to the work of activists like Larry Kramer, who strove to save a community that most medical professionals and governmental platforms pointedly ignored. It’s part love story, part drama, and part quest — the role of dragon and villains played by the prejudice and indifference of mainstream society.

“We took care of our own… when you look at the way information got disseminated in the 80s about AIDS, and how not to get it, and what was going on, it was gay-run organizations. We weren’t waiting for the government,” said Crosby. “I think that’s the parallel for folks today: take responsibility of things into your own hands… Someone has to be the catalyst; someone has to be willing to take up the fight.”

The show runs Thursday through Sunday nights until May 12 at the Robert B. Moss Theatre, home of Richmond Triangle Players, located at 1300 Altamont Ave in Scott’s Addition. Tickets range from $10-$28, and you can get them here.

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